When you are about to start a new business, a major aspect that will sooner than later come across your way, is your online presence. This is a very important solid ground for you to stand on (link to a previous blog) You may feel that things are getting out of hand when introduced to the various technical terms and services providers, so what you initially need to know is, first, what exactly is the difference between a host and a domain, and second, which service provider is the best.
Host and Domain are two separate things
As for the domain name, it is the plain address of where your webpage is located. A web host, on the other hand, is basically a server where websites and their data are stored. Because the amount of data that is needed to create an accessible website is huge, it is cheaper to “rent a place” to store the data than creating your own place from scratch, that place you have “rented” is the webhost or the server. This enables you to reach the data at any given time, anywhere as long as you have an internet connection.
People often confuse these terms with one another because both services are usually offered by the same provider. It is important to note that you register a domain name BEFORE you setup a website, a domain name needs to be unique, it is also preferred that you choose a catchy and easy-to-type name.
Challenges and obstacles you might face
It is a bit complicated to undergo this process for non-experts, and especially in the arab world and the gulf area due to lack of guidance, and this is exactly why we are here, in Road9 Media, we fully understand the challenges that a small business faces, we understand that you, probably starting your business in a GCC country where the challenges are doubled, need to minimize your risks as much as possible, and we finally understand that you have a certain final goal in mind and we only step in to help you accomplish not only that certain goal, but also the entire series of goals that that one had created, yes, it’s a snow-ball effect.
For a better understanding of the process, there are some major questions that need to be answered first; with these answers being in mind, you will find the whole process much simpler. Technically speaking, a domain name are the string of characters of your website address, the one that an internet user will type on the address bar, this could be one or more label, separated with dots, where the last label is the domain itself from which derives subdomains in a descending order, e.g: www.road9media.com is our domain name; where (.com) is the domain or top-level domain, (road9media) is a subdomain of (.com) domain [also known as second-level domain], and by default, (www) is a subdomain /third-level domain of the (road9media.com) subdomain.
How to choose your domain name professionally
As previously mentioned, you can buy both domain name and hosting service from the same provider, the world’s most popular and recommended provider company is GoDaddy. There are some pro tips and tricks to choose your perfect domain name; first of which, you have got to keep it short, simple and easy to type.
Also it is much better if you use a keyword (of course it should be related to your area of expertise) within the name, this will improve your rank on search engines.
You might as well want to include a specific area in your domain name if you are providing a local service, take our domain name as an example; Road9 is actually a physical place and it is where we are located, and though we are not just offering local services, it is catchy enough (that is another trick) to stick to your mind!
You need to thoroughly research the name you’ve chosen to make sure it is not already used or copyrighted. You also want to use the right extension (.com .net) at the end of your domain address, the most popular one is ( .com) of course, but it could be hard to find a good enough domain name with (.com) because it is very old, so the name is most likely taken. If you could not find a proper address with the (.com) extension, you can use one of these cool new generic top-level domains like ( .tech or .shop) find the one that fits your business.
And finally, use the Domain Checker to make sure that yours is unique and not already taken. and this is it, you have one fine domain name!
Why you should care about choosing the perfect service provider for your needs
Website hosting is also something you do not want to forget about and you want to keep your mind on it all the way long, it is simply where you will store the website, it is hard, inefficient and very expensive to store it on your own as you will need one server that is working 24/7 and another that is a back-up, so it is much easier if you just “rented a storage”, and GoDaddy Domain Site also offers that along with the domain registering services that we previously talked about. You need a website hosting service because you necessarily want your website to be easily accessible by anyone, anywhere. You could be living in a GCC country -or any Arab country for that matter, running your business there, and your website data are stored at, for example, GoDaddy’s servers in Arizona, and yet, it is easily managed by you and accessible by anyone in the whole world.
Changing your services providers, it is legit
Now what if you already have a domain name at a certain company and want to transfer it to another? Is that even possible? Yes, it is possible, and although you are transferring your domain name over to a new company, it does not necessarily mean you have to use their hosting services, you can always have the domain name registered at a different provider than the hosting provider.
Lack of a Domain Privacy is not a deal-breaker, and here is why
Another term that you might have heard a lot is domain privacy; A register (the service provider) is obligated to show specific information of their client to the public, e.g: Name, address, email and phone number. If you are comfortable with this information being available to the public, there is no need to purchase a domain privacy, but if you are not, the domain privacy will shield these information and show your domain registrar's instead.
Yes, it is possible to host more than one domain on the same account
You can host more than one domain name on one account, depending on the service provider you have chosen, and GoDaddy Domain Services for instance, offer many packages suitable for any kind of use. You can use your domain name as an email address but in fact you’ll be using a regular email service provided by a regular provider, only with your domain name instead of the email service provider’s name. And if you ever feel overwhelmed, you can always rely on us to have all the work done for you.a
